Human memory is shit, easily altered, and the worst way to recall an event. The courts are finding this out. When video contradicts someone's story, I'm inclined to believe that the person honestly thinks the event happened as they remember it. But memories can be fudged. People can remember things as an event when they never happened. Our brains are amazing things and the more I know and learn about how the mind works the more in awe I am that we Humans have been able to do ANYTHING other than hunt antelope on the plains of Africa. You do not remember an event... the way your brain works is that you recall the last time you remembered something. each time you pull that memory a game of Chinese fire drill is going on in your grey matter. The brain and the mind fascinate me.
I love unreliable witnesses - I like how it plays with narrative and adds another sort of level to a straightforward linear narrative. I've been playing around with this in a story where the unreliability reveal comes at the end, and so the story can be read in two ways; what is told, and then what is inferred by hints from the environment and other character's dialog. I'm not sure it's possible to pull off and I'm certain I don't have the writing chops for it, but it's a fun exercise.